On 20th January 2020 America and the world witnessed the swearing-in of the 46th President of the United States. Immediately he came into office he signed a raft of executive orders to roll-back the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump.  Key important orders were inter-alia,

1.    Freeze on all agency rulemaking pending further review for a period of 60 days and in particular former Secretary Mnuchin’s proposal on “unhosted wallets.” fronted in December 2020.  The implication of this was that all exchanges are required to give names and addresses of their customers transferring over 3000USD in Crypto per day and file currency Transactions reports for customers transacting over 10,000USD per day. The challenges with this of course is that Smart Contracts do not reflect the names and address information. We shall delve into this in our next piece Article.

2.    The Appointment of Gary Gensler as the Chairman of Securities Exchange Commission. Gary was the former chair of the CFTC and was a vocal proponent of Cryptocurrencies as the chair then. It was during his tenure that he proposed they be classified as Securities. This has been adopted in countries like Nigeria where the SEC has classified them as such. Back here at Kenya, the Court made a finding to that effect too. It will be good to see what Gary will bring on board given his previous stand and extensive background on regulation.

3.    However rather disappointing are the remarks of Janet Yellen the nominee for the Secretary Treasury, who intimated that Lawmakers should curtail the use of Cryptos as they are used for nefarious activities. Sentiments that were echoed by the President of the European Central Bank.

Conclusion

Looks like a mixed bag of optimism and a tinge of Pessimism, but let’s wait and see. Awaiting the Coinbase IPO and discuss Ripple.